I think what we have lost in this conversation is the number of pacifists who put their own lives at risk by serving with their fellow soldiers on the battlefield as ambulance drivers and the all important medics tasked with treating their fellow soldiers often under fire. This type of pacifist or conscientious objector had as high a level of morality as one could achieve.
Then there was Doss: Desmond Thomas Doss (February 7, 1919 – March 23, 2006). Doss refused to kill an enemy soldier or carry a weapon into combat because of his personal beliefs as a Seventh-day Adventist.
He served as a combat medic with an infantry company in World War II. He was twice awarded the Bronze Star Medal for actions in Guam and the Philippines. Doss further distinguished himself for service above and beyond the call of duty in the Battle of Okinawa by saving 75 men at considerable personal risk, becoming the only conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor during World War II.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Doss
...." 42,000 American men were classified as conscientious objectors during World War II and did “alternative service” at Civilian Peace Service camps run by the “Historic Peace Churches,” i.e., the Mennonites, Friends/Quakers, and the Church of the Brethren.
Another 25, 000 became “non-combat conscientious objectors,” that is, they did not object to military service, merely to killing. The Non-Combatatant COs became ambulance drivers and medics during the war.
Others, who objected to cooperating with Selective Service (coerced military service) at all, went to prison for the duration of the war.
Others volunteered to work in mental hospitals................. before this service, “hospitals” for the mentally ill were nightmarish places of torture and torment. The work of WWII COs (and many of their wives, too) transformed these places and changed the way that Americans thought about mental illness."
https://levellers.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/conscientious-objectors-during-world-war-ii/
